Businesses depend on getting access to their lines to traffic, and keeping them trafficking. Users of telephony services desire a system that can provide the carrier functionality that the user's long-distance business needs to succeed, in one place, available to the user virtually 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Other network providers fail to deliver an expeditious and effective user experience for managing their telecommunications networks. Other network providers do not do everything needed to retrieve and store the user's minutes on the network. Other network providers fail to provide essential features so that managing long-distance networks is burdensome for the user. Other network providers typically only provide data (e.g., financial, provisioning, line loss, call event distribution or trending functions) in files, requiring the customer to tediously create their own reports. Other network providers require the user to harvest their own customer base and submit it in a traditional form, requiring additional time and expense for the user. Other network providers do not provide online access to service agreements, which requires the customer to refer to soft or hardcopy of their agreement outside of any online facility. Other network providers require that all changes to service agreements be submitted via email or in writing, causing delays in when the changes take effect. Other network providers either do not provide online reporting or limit the amount of data being reported. Other network providers do not provide an online solution for creating and viewing status of maintenance activity. Other network providers do not provide an online means to transmit and save documentation, for example, a Letter of Agency/Authorization for maintenance. Other network providers provide troubleshooting guides that are not integrated into their trouble ticketing systems. Other network providers do not provide current Call Detail Report (CDR) data in their online systems. Other network providers do not provide online access to their Feature Group D footprint. Other network providers require that rate disputes be submitted in writing. Other network providers do not provide an online means to view contracted rates or other information associated with telephony service provided to a user.
Accordingly, there is need for new and improved systems and methods for efficiently, easily, and inexpensively providing a variety of long-distance network services and network management functions over telecommunications networks; and providing a network system architecture which allows adaptability without the need for extensive reconfiguration of a network.